Barefoot all over, all over: Part FOUR

Conditioning Feet

I have been doing a deep massage with Bag Balm, which is mostly lanolin. The balm conditions my feet, preventing cracks and softens things up to be more malleable, which is good on rocks, etc. The deep massage was radical and hurt. When I found a muscle spot hurting, I would take my thumb and press very hard, Holding down until it stopped hurting. Then I’d move an inch or d so along and do it again. I now have a whole other pair of feet. The tension caused by response to pain taught my feet to not react so sensitively, or as if tender. The relaxed muscles help the foot and body’s spring mechanics to act naturally, hitting the surfaces correctly and reacting naturally. The deep massage causes inflammation, so barefoot on moist ground and other Earthing techniques helped with that. There’s always ibuprofen. DF bought me a hard ball with rubber appendages coating it. It helps. It massages. It is a little bigger than a golfball. She found it at REI. Things like this will jumpstart your recovery from a shod life and steer your system toward a healthy response.

Walking and running on uneven surfaces helps restore balance and natural reactions. It builds muscles that have lost strength. If you can’t get out to nature, you can run around a 15 foot diameter circle, each direction. You put objects around the circumference about knee height and bend to touch them as you run by, reaching. Barefoot is about using the whole body.

Building some calluses can become closer to optimum, as time goes on, but the massage and balm have shown me that feet are pretty tough and ready to go, before that. The need to toe heel walk, lifting at the knee more and thereby lifting the foot, all of this made me realize that my feet were way off of healthy. I just hadn’t been doing those things, not in years. Feet can recover and be bare very rapidly, dramatically supporting most of the other bodily systems. I often spend an hour or two massaging my feet deeply and loving them. They immediately show a great deal of appreciation for this when we take a stroll, naked.

You know you’re old when someone compliments you on your alligator shoes, and you’re barefoot.
Phyllis Diller